


Missed Opportunity

by hauntedjaeger (saellys)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 21:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Herc brings a lot of guilt into the Drift, a lot of resignation. In the span of five years, some of it has found a home in Mako's chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missed Opportunity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MayQueen517](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayQueen517/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Everything West of Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009610) by [MayQueen517](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayQueen517/pseuds/MayQueen517). 



> This was basically an excuse for me to slice and dice the Hansens' deleted scene and put Mako in Herc's place. Best excuse ever.
> 
> MayQueen517 concocted this AU for "Everything West of Home" and it was too brilliant not to write a spinoff. It won't make any sense at all if you don't read that one first, so go read it first.
> 
> quigonejinn contributed so many details to this that I don't even remember which ideas were hers and which were mine. DRIFT COMPATIBLE.

Mako pauses at the edge of Striker's shadow to speak with Sylvia about the latency in the feedback cradle. She noticed it during the fight with Mutavore, a hint of sluggishness when the harness transmitted Herc's motion to her. They Drift so cleanly that the feedback cradle is almost superfluous, that all they need on the physical side of things is the circuitry suits so they feel what Striker feels. But Sylvia keeps her Jaeger running tight, so Mako asks about the refit and Sylvia gives her a thorough sitrep, and Mako keeps an eye on Striker's feet and tries to gauge what kind of mood Chuck is in. 

No power tools have been tossed onto the deck, which is a good sign. The music is blaring and awful, some of the worst in the whole Dome. Mako doesn't know how Sylvia puts up with it. She thanks the senior tech and walks over to find Chuck muscling the dented cover off one of Striker's cleats. As he turns to place it on the deck with a gentleness that always surprises Mako, she sees two fresh cuts on his face--clotted, but with no bandages or ointment. 

Stubborn ass. She can see it now, what happened in the Marshal's quarters after she and Herc left: Pentecost telling Chuck he was grounded, and Chuck getting up, silent, red in the face, fists clenched. Becket maybe thought Chuck was going to take a swing at the Marshal, asked for permission to be dismissed, and brought him to the Kwoon to get it out of his system. No hanbō, just bare fists, holding nothing at all back. A fight, not a dialogue. Mako wonders if they drew a crowd, if anyone watching understood what their dynamic really is, if anyone else has figured out why Becket took the 01 harness in the Conn-Pod when he used to be a lefty. 

Chuck looks up, and something flashes across his face before he shuts it down and goes into tech mode. "Hydraulics are shot--we'll need to replace 'em."

Mako turns down the radio. "I'm sorry you're grounded."

"Yeah, well, don't feel too guilty about it," Chuck says, turning it back up. "I'm right back where I belong." 

He goes to retrieve a power drill, and Mako flicks the radio off entirely. When Chuck whirls, mouth open to snap at her, she says, "I chased the RABIT on my first Drift with Herc."

Chuck rolls his eyes. "Don't bullshit me, Mako. I was watching the feed. You didn't even hiccup." 

"The first thing I saw," Mako tells him, arms crossed over her chest, pulling Herc's RAAF jacket closer around her, "was Sydney, and from there I slid right back to Tokyo. It was everything you saw at the academy, and I was going to lose myself in it all over again, until I felt your dad's hand on my shoulder. He pulled me out." 

"Great story. Inspiring. What's your point?"

The point is to make him feel better, reassure him that everyone has shitty Drifts, remind him that there are only four Jaegers left in the world right now and that before Mako and Tendo had to yank out the power line and shut Danger down, the Drift was strong, too strong for the Marshal to ignore, and that Chuck will be back in the Conn-Pod one way or another before the world ends. 

Instead Mako looks away and says, "You're only as good as your co-pilot."

His nostrils flare and he takes a step closer. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"That you're not the problem. Becket went out of phase first. I don't think he's the right man for this mission." She said as much to Sensei, earlier in his quarters, and Herc backed her up, neither of them liking it, but it had to be done. The Marshal always insisted his door was open, that they were running point and he wanted to know if they ever had any misgivings.

Chuck nods slowly, like she just confirmed something he suspected for a while, but it's got nothing to do with Raleigh Becket's mission readiness. "Well that's great, Mako," he says, voice soft, "but we can't all Drift with Hercules Christ Figure Hansen, can we?"

"They should have run your numbers against his at the academy." That wouldn't have happened, because it was never the plan, and the fact that Mako's scan got compared with Herc's in the first place was a fluke, a clerical error, someone searching the records by last name instead of Ranger number and pulling up the wrong chart. The Marshal made sure they restricted the search parameters so the confusion would never happen again.

The Drift isn't necessary for chasing RABITs, and for just a moment Mako is there again, at Kodiak as the scan techs projected the gamma waves side-by-side, then superimposed them alongside a stream of numbers Mako didn't understand. Doctor Lightcap's eyes were wide behind her glasses. _We knew you two were compatible, but this..._

Then Chuck pointed at the name in the upper right corner, and said with the voice of a man pronouncing his own death sentence, _That's not my scan_. 

And then came Doctor Lightcap's embarrassed little _Oh_ , and the quiet phone call she made afterward, and the way Chuck's face eyes grew harder and his jaw got tighter.

"Well they didn't," Chuck snaps, pulling himself out of the memory at the same time Mako does. "So what else am I supposed to do? And I'll tell you another thing. You see that lovely lady over there?" Mako follows his pointed finger to Lady Danger, two bays over, gleaming like new. "It was my sweat that put her back together. The quick-draw plasma canon was my design. I added up the hours, and it turns out that after Mum died I've spent more time with that machine than I ever did with my old man. Or you." He sweeps his finger over to prod her in the chest, right over Herc's embroidered nametag. It's Chuck's favorite way to start a fight with her, but when she doesn't take the bait he goes on, "So just leave Raleigh out of it, yeah? Because it was my connection with her that was too strong for the failsafe. I almost blew us all up. _I'm_ the problem."

If Herc is a Christ figure, Chuck is a martyr. 

That's why Mako said she'd go talk to Chuck, and told Herc to get a bite in the canteen instead. Mako has seen all the things Herc wishes he could say to his son, and she's not afraid to say them, and maybe if they come from her, Chuck will actually listen.

"You're a great Ranger," she tells him. "Is that what you want to hear?" 

"From you, Little Miss Thirteen Kills?" Chuck snorts, but there's something vulnerable in his eyes for a change, and he shifts his weight and Mako isn't sure whether he'll try to hit her or kiss her. She knows what she'd do in the first case, but not the second. 

He doesn't do either. When he speaks again his voice is quiet, and he tries to give it a hard edge but it comes out brittle like old iron. "What more do you want me to be?"

Mako stares up at him. "We're past that," she whispers. 

Again with the _That's what I thought_ nod. He steps past her with a calculated shove of his upper arm against her shoulder, and she hears his combat boots slam down on the deck, then stop, because of course he can't leave without getting the last word. "You know what? At least you can't blame yourself. Because he's acted like more of a father to you than he ever has to me. I bet he thinks that makes up for it--for not raising me. Like he can do a better job with you. And the Marshal, has he ever even hugged you in public? So you go on, Mako. You take what you can get, wherever you can get it, and I'll do the same." 

She turns, ready to come at him, for what he said about Pentecost if nothing else, but the part of her that is Herc keeps her still. Mako shuts her eyes and lets a breath out through her nose, and when she looks at Chuck again he has an expression of disgust on his face, the way he looks whenever she uses one of his father's mannerisms. She wishes she could tell him that she's not the one copying Herc. She's been in both their heads, and she knows.

Herc Hansen walks around in a faded, soft henley he's owned since before the Jaeger program. He still wears his Lucky Seven vest, ferchrissake. Mako saw in the Drift that the day he finally took off his wedding ring was the first time he put on a circuitry suit. He retained his pre-Drift sense of propriety for two years, four kills, eight deployments, before she finally convinced him to let go of that, and--

As long as Herc clings to his past, every bit as long as that, Chuck clings to his grudges. They get warped into something no one else would even recognize as a grudge, this need to prove himself and, more importantly, prove everyone else wrong. Mako understands. She wanted vengeance once, too.

Herc brings a lot of guilt into the Drift, a lot of resignation. In the span of five years, some of it has found a home in Mako's chest. 

So she stands still and lets Chuck see that she won't give him the satisfaction of thrashing him bloody, and he curls his lip at her and stalks off, and Mako spends the rest of the day trying not to think about how right he is.


End file.
